New to Video editing - a few questions.

[Andy Sayle]

Afternoon all.

After having a play around with some very basic video editing last year, I have bought myself two video cameras to compare and contrast, with the aim of keeping the one most suited to my needs. I have previously used my digital camera recording VGA footage, and thrown together some clips using Windows movie maker.

I have bought a Sony HDR TG3E and a Sanyo VPC HD1010, mainly because I couldn't decide between the two, so I thought it would be best to try them both out! I'm going to be using it for filming various outdoorsy things, including kites, RC planes and whatnot.

Now, I am after a bit of software to edit clips from both cameras if possible. I don't need anything too fancy, just something that can allow titles/credits music to be applied etc. I think for now, Movie maker would do the trick, although I cannot figure out how to get it to work on the footage from both camcorders. Does anyone know if it is possible to get Movie maker to handle HD footage?. Ideally I want to be able to output the projects in a number of formats, ranging from full HD to webcast quality stuff.

I have read a bit about the Sony Vegas software, so can anyone tell me if this is able to handle footage from both cameras, and output projects in a range of formats/quality from full HD downwards. Also, there seems to be several versions of this software, so which one would be the best one to go for?

Finally, I have read a bit about this editing lark being quite PC dependant. I have a quad core AMD Phenom PC (9950 cpu) running with 4Gb Ram, so this should be okay right? I normally use it for CAD work on some fairly complex assemblies.

Any pointers, hints and tips for a newbie would be appreciated!

Cheers
Andy

[sep8001]

Hi I have used Pinnacle Studio and Ulead Video Studio 11.5, from both I prefer Ulead and that does have the option to output in HD.

It is easy to use and you PC will run the app without any problems.

[Andy Sayle]

Thanks for the response. I had a look at the Ulead software, but ended up downloading a trial version of the Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum edition. I've only spent a couple of hours tinkering and following some of the tutorials (really good they are!), and it seems like it will do everything I need.

Outputting the file (rendering it) is proving to be quite interesting though, there are so many formats to choose from! I'm still not sure which ones are the best to go for....

Cheers
ANdy

[sep8001]

Just experiment with the different formats to see what suits you. I would suggest doing a small clip say about 10mins as rendering does take some time.